2172/Daimon-ic Vessels

Daimon-ic Vessels
Date of Scene:	17 December 2024
Location:	Riverside Path
Synopsis:	Viluy is in the midst of testing out vessels for use as daimon hosts, when Star Devil, Snow Angel Mou Fubuki, Wedding Bell, Magical Rocket Girl Red, and Tuxedo Kamen burst onto the scene to save the day - and the horrifying creature the victim has become.
Cast of Characters:	280, Angela Erickson, Molly Skyline, Mamoru Chiba, Laisa Samuiko, Amanda Faust

---

Death Buster Viluy (280) has posed:
Since Eudial's death, the lab has been terribly busy. If Viluy were a more compassionate, caring person - well, if she were one of those people, she wouldn't be a Witch, so perhaps that doesn't matter. The point is, with her, Tellu, and Mimete all working on their own projects to advance their collective cause, their expansive laboratories were beginning to feel a bit... impacted.

Crowded, even.

And since it was out of the question that she kill one of the fools (Kaolinite would not approve of such obvious and gauche scrabbling for rank), the best thing to do was more field work.

Last time, she'd been able to send off the ping, and discovered that Professor Tomoe's daughter was more than likely not the hapless prisoner they had assumed, but a willing collaborator, given her freedom at a popular event. This time, rather than focusing on that, she's focusing on something more important - gathering vessels, and increasing the number of their people.

Which is to say, that a few minutes ago, a dark wave had rolled out through the area and the citizens who had been happily enjoying their days had collapsed, their energy being drained away. The tower is already active, the portal - an ugly tear in space, behind which lurks bulbous masses of flesh, each towering, moving in grotesque undulations every few seconds.

Near that tear are a number of lackluster looking youma, each in the process of walking a line of sluggish, mumbling civilians towards the portal, while Viluy stands near the tower, taking scans and notes of the progress.

"Hurry along, hurry along, I want those eggs implanted before some horde of children come to spoil the experiment."

Angela Erickson has posed:
Angela Erickson was dancing out of a store on the other side of the river. "YOU CaN RING MY BELLLL BEEEL BEEEELLLL RING MY BELL!" she sang, badly. Her dancing was spot on however.

Suki spun to the dancing, singling along to the song when Suki suddenly stopped and floated towards the edge of the water. "Angi, wait!" she called out.

"What is that over there. Looks like a rip in localized space time to a strange brain dimension..."

"...What?" asks Suki.

"What?" asks Angela with a shrug. "Let's go check it out!" she says.

Angela calls out. "My Own Heart, Unlock!" and her and Suki merge. There's an elaborate transformation sequence here. It involves a bright white light, a girl being put into a wedding dress, arms being thrown back as fingerless gloves, long to her elbows form and she places a finger to her lips and winks to a non-existent camera. "Wedding Bell!" she calls out, as her and Suki merge into a transformation.

Then she leaps high into the air and pulls out a parasol and starts floating down to the otherside of the river. When she's there, she drops the parasol and falls to the ground lightly.

"Give up, brainiacs! I won't let you invade Earth with your throbbing cerebullums or whatnot!" she says sternly.

Molly Skyline has posed:
The moment Molly gets a notification that another portal has been detected, bringing with it the obvious amounts of dark energy, Molly is on the move. She's out of class, which is fortunate, so she finds her way behind the Academy so she can shift into her Barrier Jacket and take to the skies, pushing her top speed to get there as rapidly as possible. She fires off a text in her best friend Rashmi's direction too, but isn't expecting her to make it this time -- but she's gotta keep her in the loop, naturally.

As she gets close, she grips her staff, letting her wings slow her down so she can evaluate the situation before just rushing in. Chrono would be proud? Maybe? Her battle visor lights up, marking the portal, the lackluster Youmas, the tower, and Viluy if she's suitably obvious enough; all of them in red, the shuffling civillians in yellow, and any incoming allies in blue. Also the squishy brain thing in the portal as an unknown, but probably hostile. (I mean, come on.)

"Alright, first things first. Starcrash, let's get a Time-Space Barrier up."

<< AFFIRMATIVE. BARRIER DEPLOYED >>

A ripple in space-time expands out from Molly, shunting the immediate area a half-dimension over, so that there can be a fight without trashing Tokyo in the process. Ideally, it's supposed to leave the civillians out, but it doesn't always seem to do that around the towers. Either way, Molly's got something in mind for that, too. "Starcrash, charge Stellar Barrage. Target all Youmas, five barrets per Youma, no explosions. Kinetic payload only with homing."

<< ARMED >>

Molly's battle visor lights up with targeting information and target locks, and she quirks the corners of her lips upwards.

"Fire."

As promised, a serries of barrets erupt from her staff, all of them rocketing off towards the various lackluster Youmas, while Molly floats down towards the ground so she can get a better view of what's going on.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Good, someone is taking point. Tuxedo Kamen lands lightly atop a lamp post along the path behind Viluy and looks down at Wedding Bell, and he's about to say something when Molly says FIRE, at which point he goes back to looking over the stuff Viluy has set up.

He silently throws a rose at the most expensive-looking piece of equipment, then crouches there like a gargoyle, waiting for a good angle on another piece of equipment.

He's honestly curious about Wedding Bell's attacks, so he also watches there, too.

Laisa Samuiko has posed:
    Laisa here, one of the unruly children who show up to disrupt Obsidian's plans. Though really she was just in the area, walking along the riverside in a heavy light blue winter coat. She runs her fingers through her purple hair as she watches the water, only hesitating once she starts to notice things are suddenly... a bit strange.

    There's a wave of darkness. People are falling over, and at this time of year she can be pretty sure it's not the summer heat. Other people are walking like zombies and... oh. Oh. There are youma. That's an issue.

    She ducks behind a tree, and emerges as Snow Angel Mou Fubuki, taking advantage of the fact that other mahou are drawing all the attention to themselves. She skates more than walks, freezing the ground beneath her feet and sliding across it for speed. A halberd of solid ice forms in her hands. Her eyes go to the portal and the tower. "Huh... another one of those."

    While others are taking up most of the attention, she's skating behind the lackluster youma and slashing or jabbing them with her icy polearm. "Excuse me. Coming through. Oh, so sorry. My bad."

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy is out on patrol! Well. Okay, technically, she's taking a break. Or she was taking a break. Sitting on a bench reading when suddenly DARK ENERGY WAVE happened, and there was Viluy and a bunch of youma and, surprisingly, no one immediately appeared making justice speeches or shooting.

    She's not sure she wants to solo a dark general and multiple youma so she plays along. Magical girls will show up soon, and then...

    So it is that she played possum and ended up in line, pretending to be out of it, mumbling, and wishing that Viluy was one to monologue about her plans more.

    That scanner's a concern. Once she passes by it, it'll detect she's not been drained, right?

    The comment about eggs makes her briefly look more worried than a drained and out-of-it civilian should be. What?! What are they doing here?! Where's backup, hurry, hurry, hurry!

    And then she feels the barrier go up, and hears the battle and the speeches start, and while focus is on the newly-arrived mahou, she transforms as well, stepping out of line to fire (non-explosive) gyrojets at the youma herding folks. "EGGS?! What in the name of dark science are you doing with this portal to the brain dimension?!" she asks Viluy, since the jig is up, both ways.

Death Buster Viluy (280) has posed:
"Throbbing - what?" The youma, being youma, don't stop to stare at the girl in the wedding dress, continuing to drag the civilians around - but Viluy certainly does, looking at her with complete and utter bafflement. "Child, have you ever seen a cerebellum?"

Perhaps this distraction is why Viluy doesn't notice Star Devil's presence until the barrier goes up - the world is shunted ever so slightly to another direction, the color leaching out of their surroundings until everything is a vague sepia tone. The strange effect the towers has previously had persists - the civilians don't disappear, which is helpful for the youma, who proceed to throw the one at the front of the line bodily into the portal.

The girl - a teenager in a high school uniform, who had probably been walking home - goes rolling downwards, the portal having apparently been on a slope. The draining effect doesn't seem to persist in the portal, because she starts to rouse after a moment, just as her body rolls to a halt under one of those undulating masses of flesh.

She screams.

A mouth, full of finger-length razor-sharp teeth, opens in the mass. Gleaming red eyes open to glare at the girl.

It, too, screams, before it drops down to cover her form.

The youma who had shoved the girl goes to reach for another, only for it - and the other five lackluster youma - to be knocked by the kinetic force! The victims sprawl where they were held, too weak from draining to run.

Viluy twists to shout at them, only for her very expensive spectrophotometer to be suddenly punctured with a rose of all things, the screen cracking, the power dying, the data gone.

Her lackluster youma are very quickly being defeated between the ice sword swings, the gyrojets, and the earlier barrets, but Viluy isn't willing to count this experiment out just yet, shifting to better guard the Tower as screams and cries ring out.

"Have none of you children ever observed a brain?" She asks with genuine concern. "These proto-daimon do not look like any form of anatomically correct brain."

Angela Erickson has posed:
Wedding Bell looks to Viluy and she HEADTILTS in the way a confused dog does. The JEPOARDY waiting theme plays in her head for a moment as she scrunches her nose. "Wait."

"Why do I care what you think about this is all your fault there's a portal to the non-atom--anatonim... FAKE BRAIN DIMENSION!" she says angrily.

That's when she spins the bouquet in her right hand and throws it forward, pointing it at Viluy. "BRIDAL SHOWER!"

Ding. What's that in the sky? Oh, it's a wave of white searing (not purifying) energy from the heavens raining down on the Dark General, the surrounding area and some of the proto-daimons

If she notices Tuxedo Kamen being formal wear Batman she doesn't swoon about it.

"HEY EVERYONE, WhAT IS THIS WOMAN'S PROBLEM BESIDES TOO MANY... non-atomic..? BRAINS!?" she asks.

Molly Skyline has posed:
"I don't know! She's a Witch! Witches ALL have problems with... I dunno like everything!" Molly shouts back to Wedding Bell. The Star Devil shoulders her staff, watching as her handiwork is added to by the other heroes present; and she flashes a grin to Amy. "Nice shooting!" she calls out to her.

Of course, that rose piercing Vliuy's gadget and ruining her data might just be the best icing on the cake; but then there's screaming from inside the portal. From the girl who just got tossed in; and that's certainly not ideal, and the purplenette's glibness drains away, replaced by the knit of her brow.

"Alright, that's not good. Starcrash, what's going on in there?"

<< THAT INFORMATION IS NOT AVAILABLE >>

"...No need to be talking like Zen from Blake's 7," Molly sighs as she takes back to the skies, moving straight up to try and get a better view. "Oi! Witch! Whatever your name is!" She calls out as she rises, pointing Starcrash's business end straight at Viluy. "What'a you think you're doing?! Let that girl go and make the nasty evil squidgy not a brain but looks like a brain from a bad TV show go away!" Her eyes narrow, "Starcrash, charge Solar Ray, ten second duration. Overcharge thermal output."

<< ARMED. REPEATED USE INADVISABLE >>

"Got it." Molly inclines her chin. "Final warning. Let her go or I'll light your entire existence on fire!"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru pulls his hand up to his chest. "Tuxedo--" he says, his cape billowing around him and the lamp post, and man it would make the most awesome shadows if it were nighttime but it's day, so no shadows.

The girl's gone sailing into the portal and is screaming and going in after her wouldn't help it WOULDN'T HELP and he squeezes his eyes shut for a second because he hates them he hates them and no, that's too personal. "--la Smoking--"

And then he throws out his hand toward Viluy, fingers spread wide and glowing, and with his final word, a big punchy laser blossoms out from his hand, rushing light in her direction in a continuous attack: "--Bomber!"

And he doesn't jump away yet. He just stands on that lamppost and looks down and says, "I've seen a brain."

Laisa Samuiko has posed:
    Mou looks ahead at the portal and... Oh yikes that's horrifying. Poor girl.

    "Okay but like... you have to admit it looks a bit brainy. Like it's a lumpy mass with bulbs and crevices and like... you know?"

    Laisa feels like she's not being terribly convincing and honestly it's beside the point. People are getting thrown into a portal one after another, and that's kindof the bigger issue right now. Chasing through the rip in space is probably a bad idea, so she decides upon the next best thing: cutting off the flow of people.

    Skating past the crowd of youma and shambling normies, she makes her way towards the portal and raises her halberd in the air while the local temperature drops. A pair of icy wings sprouts out of her back as she declares, "ICE WALL!" and strikes the ground with her polearm. A thick barrier of ice forms a circle around the portal, a few meters tall. Then she stands between the youma and her new structure, and with a single swipe cuts a divot into the ground. Mou Fubuki looks directly at the nearest lackluster youma and says, "The next monster who crosses this line will die."

Amanda Faust has posed:
    "Well okay it doesn't look like an actual brain it looks like a brain monster and-- What is it doing to her?!" Amy shouts in alarm as she sees the girl tossed through the portal get... pounced on? By the not-a-brain monster.

    Is... is that how the eggs are implanted? Thanks, this is just what Amy's nightmares needed.

    With the youma down, Amy rushes forward to those next in line, urging them: "Run, run! Get out of here! You don't want to end up like her, do you?! Ugh!" Of course, they're in no condition to run. Amy looks at the portal.

    That poor girl...

    Amy should run in and help, but what if she ends up trapped? Eugh... But explosives don't work through the portal. But clearly things do go through it, so kinetic energy should work, right? She fires at the still-not-a-brain monster before remembering that rocket-propelled slugs won't get up to speed if their rockets fail.

    Nice shooting? Amy just kind of stares back at the devil-girl complimenting her. The nightmare is getting weirder-- and then she recognizes: oh right, Molly's henshin. Why did she pick that...?

    Amy smiles and nods to Star Devil before turning to screech at Viluy while continuing to try and shoot through the portal. "Why is it like this!? What is a protodaimon?!"

Death Buster Viluy (280) has posed:
Well now, it seems her little experiment has drawn a number of strong emotional responses. How predictable. It would have been better, of course, if Viluy hadn't lost her spectrophotometer and could get a more diverse range of readings than just what the tower's built-in sensors could provide, but she's still getting data.

She's just also getting more heat than she cares to take, at this time.

"Mosiac Barrier!"

A glowing circle of sparkling blue light appears around Viluy and the tower as the pale cuff on her left arm glows with blue light - the nanites she controls with the cuff are strong and durable, and the attacks which rain down upon her are devoured by the barrier. She looks away from all the flashing lights, the better to preserve her vision.

"An-a-tom-i-ca-lly correct," she sounds out slowly, looking at Angela. "And you are correct - it is my fault. But I would think you'd care because that young lady would certainly like to get out of there."

The attacks that were sent through the portal simply - don't work. They pass through, and then dissolve, as though their magic was cannibalized away by the act of passing through the portal. Once the ice wall goes up, the portal is blocked off - the other civilians aren't able to get through, and the youma don't try to throw them - half of them are already dissolving away, having been destroyed by the initial volley.

The screaming has stopped. It's quiet, behind the ice, and then they'll hear it - the sound of scrabbling against the ice, like an animal scratching at the door.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"If anyone has a purification attack, now would be a great time to use it on that ice wall portal thing with the girl inside," calls Tuxedo Kamen, and then his eyes land on Viluy again, and this is the point at which he takes out another rose, and whips it at the Witch's shield. He says sharply, "Stop hiding. Run away if you can't take the heat, Viluy."

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy's questions go unanswered. Instead there's an ice wall, and Viluy is shielded, and in a moment of quiet, there's scrabbling against the ice. "LET HER GO!" Amy screams, kicking the ice, and then shouting "Get back!" and slapping explosives against the ice wall a bit away from the scrabbling, and diving before they go off. << Attacks don't work through the portal! My explosives and kinetic penetrators just disappear! >> Amy warns the group, through telepathy.

Angela Erickson has posed:
"Ana-tom-i-calllllly.." she says as she scrunches her nose again. Then there's a barrier. Like a shield. And it's protecting the woman and her area and she looks angry. She raises her bouquet and with a flash if light, she rakes a white laser ineffectually against it. It is not a strong attack, she did'nt even scream out a name. "Stop hiding!" she commands.

She looks over to Tuxedo Kamen and suddenly her eyes go wide. "...T..Tuxedo Boy... I've found you..." she says, angelic choir in the background of her vision as shoujo bubbles from the back of that cape in her vision.

SNAP BACK TO REALITY.

OH HE SAID SOMETHING IMPORTANT! >.<. She turns towards the portal and raises her flowery bouquet again and calls out. "WEDDING BELLS ARE RINGING!" she calls out, a giant .. bell!? poofing into existence above the portal before it's hit by some unseen force, a loud BONG before a purification laser lances out at the portal and that ice wall!?

"DO NOT WORRY FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS. FOR IT TOLLS FOR THEE.... jerk." she says, narrowing her eyes at the Witch.

Laisa Samuiko has posed:
    Laisa stands firm, but the fate of the girl in the portal behind her is starting to weigh heavily upon her soul. That scratching sound sends a different kind of chill down her spine as she turns around and looks through the ice.

    The wall is not a flawless block of ice, which is to say that there are numerous fractures and air bubbles trapped within, obscuring the view of whatever is happening on the other side. After all, it wasn't made to be a window, just a barrier. Which means that all Laisa sees beyond the ice is just a shadowy form of something scratching.

    Tuxedo Kamen calls out for a purification attack, and Snow Angel Mou Fubuki frowns. Amy starts bombing the ice wall and it fractures pretty quickly against the magical explosive force. Once it takes enough damage it starts to break away.

    "Does purification even work here? Last time I saw one of these things... The portal only closed when the tower was broken. But if we close the portal now..."

    Her halberd vanishes in a puff of frost and snowflakes. She raises her hand and points a finger to the sky as the shattered remains of her ice wall float into the air, revealing whatever is scratching against her wall. She doesn't really hesitate. If it's the girl scratching, she's just getting purified with very few side effects other than maybe needing a warm blanket. If it's a monster, well, it's getting what it deserves.

    "SNOW HEART SOLSTICE!"

    The remains of the icy wall are surrounded by specks ice and snow which dance around the solid core, blasting the portal with purifying energy and joining in with Wedding Bell's attack.

Molly Skyline has posed:
Molly hovers where she is, watching everything transpire; the ice shield goes up, attacks don't... seem to work overly well through the portal, and that poor girl is trapped in there.

And what's a Protodaimon anyway? Another question to ask Rashmi later. Or Chrono. Or, y'know, both. Or maybe Usagi.

At least one of them should know.

"Starcrash, re-charge Solar Ray. Add ten seconds of duration, increase thermal output."

<< DURATION EXTENDED. THERMAL OUTPUT ALREADY AT ON HUNDRED PERCENT >>

"Oh. Well, let's do one hundred and fifty percent. disengage safety protocols."

<< SAFETY PROTOCOLS DISENGAGED. SOLAR RAY CHARGED TO ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY PERCENT THERMAL OUTPUT. WARNING: MANA DRAIN HIGH. WARNING: REPEATED USE INADVISABLE >>

"Got it." Molly's eyes narrow. "FIRE!!" She points her staff at the wall of ice and triggers her spell, unleashing a beam that's hot not merely to what it hits, but to everything around it; the end of Starcrash glows, her own barrier jacket starts to smolder, and snow close to the target area promptly melts. But is it enough to do damage through the portal? Well; only one way to find out. And when your only available tool is an artillery piece, then everything looks strangely like a target.

Molly maintains the beam for a full twenty seconds, before it blink-blinks out, and all her and Starcrash's vents open up, releases a purple-tinted cloud of steam around her.

<< MANA RESERVES AT SIXTY-FIVE PERCENT >>

Death Buster Viluy (280) has posed:
The rose, and it's magic-breaking properties, are enough to damage the barrier, causing it to fall to the ground in glittering, gleaming chunks. Viluy tsks, and pulls a specimen bag from her work station, which she the rose into.

Right in front of Tuxedo Kamen.

Rude.

"I don't see the wisdom in that," she says calmly, "Not when I've yet to see the results of this experiment -"

And then Amy's explosives go off at the same time as Solar Ray fires, and Wedding Bell's wedding bell starts to... fire a laser?! Yes. Yes, that's exactly what it's doing.

What is exposed as the ice crashes isn't quite the girl who was tossed in.

No, it's certainly not just that poor girl.

It's a creature, a half-and-half fusion of the girl who was thrown in and the undulating creature that attacked her, her legs turned reddish-grey and bulging, her torso and an ill-defined mass of flesh, arms like limp noodles - she'd been scrabbling at the ice by flinging them with undulations of her shoulders.

Teeth burst from her mouth, past unchanged lips, and tears stream from her ordinary human eyes. Her hair seems to have become tendrilled strands, rising from her head and snapping about as though they have a mind of their own. As the snow falls over her, and the last rays of the wedding bell's laser strike her, she howls in agony. When the effects of the attacks have passed, she drops to all fours and races at the crowd of Mahou, tossing her head back like a wild animal, and trying to bite them when and if she gets close.

"Ah," Viluy sighs, "So this vessel was a failure too. Truly, if only we could understand what causes some of you humans to succeed as hosts, and others to fail..."

Behind her, darkness swirls as she prepares a duskport out, the tower surrounded in darkness as well as she prepares to get it out.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Preparing to duskport out?

Tuxedo Kamen's teeth grind as he watches the half-merged girl race toward the crowd of friends and allies and Viluy just swanning off, and he pulls his hand in and it starts to glow-- "Tuxedo," he starts, then looks back down at the girl and the crowd of mahou, and he exhales through his teeth before standing up and leaping down to level with everyone else, "Snow Angel Mou Fubuki! Wedding Bell! One more time!" he calls out and claps his hands to their backs and/or shoulders, and a warm golden flood of strength and power flows from that contact, refreshing and welcoming.

Angela Erickson has posed:
Wedding Bell watches the creature get hit, and watches Viluy begin some sort of teleporting ritual. The day is saved!

There's infernal screeching in the background!

The day is infact, not saved yet.

"Oh no." she goes as she turns towards the beast. It snaps at her and she jumps backwards into...

Into his hand. She blushes a little and hides her face behind her bouquet of flowers. More shoujo bubbles erupt into her vision! Wait. Wait. He's saying something important again. 'One More Time!'

"WEDDING BELLS ARE RINGING!" she calls out, another , new bell forming as the other one poofs away. Before it BONGS and out lances another, renewed fresh laser, this one raking back and forth as the bell moves, trying to catch the girl turned monster repeatedly.

"You know, this jerk really makes my bell ring." she says, pointing a thumb at Viluy.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy rolls over to kip up after she hears everything hit that wall at once

    Aaand what was scraping at the ice is... not any of the possibilities she expected.

    Well, okay, horrible human-monster fusion was on her mental list of possibilities, but she didn't imagine it looking like that.

    And to think, for a second Amy had considered going through the portal to rescue that girl... she feels a chill run through her.

    Amy rolls back over and rocket-jumps into the air to avoid the charging former human, and briefly considers putting her out of her misery -- but no, let the purifiers see if their powers work, first.

    Please any god that's out there let purification work.

    There is something else here for Amy's weapons to do, though: A 105mm high-explosive shell is fired at the ground next to Viluy, the BOOM of its firing from the artillery cannon on Amy's shoulder immediately followed by the BOOM of its detonation, unless defenses nullify it rather than blocking or defending it.

    Amy lands (without the cannon, dismissed so she didn't have to land with the weight) and glares daggers at Viluy, or where she was: "Human lives are not toys."

Laisa Samuiko has posed:
    Well that wasn't what she expected. Laisa stares in quiet horror as she sees the monster that the poor girl has turned into. "What... what did you do to her?!"

    The snow angel kinda wants to vomit. She manages to keep it down, but just barely. The fact that she was standing right next to the portal means that she's the first one to get assaulted. She reforms her halberd in her hands just in time to block the bite. The monster's teeth chew right through her frozen weapon with ease, and she yelps as she drops the handle and forms a tower shield in front of her to block the monster.

    She looks up at Viluy as she braces against the half-human half-monster's attack. "What the... hey you! Don't think you're getting away with this!"

    She glances to Tuxedo Kamen and the hand on her (cold) shoulder, then over at Wedding Bell. There's something ironic about this, she notes, but decides not to dwell on it too much. Saving the girl is the most important thing right now. Putting Viluy on ice will have to wait.

    "Right... here we go."

    She throws the shield at the monster, but that alone isn't much of an attack. More of a distraction to give her something to deal with while Mou Fubuki prepares another attack. She twirls in place as the wind picks up around her, arms spread out to her side as snowflakes fall from her fingertips. The air around her grows cold again as a solid block of ice about half a meter wide in each direction forms ahead of her. Purifying snow and chilly air swirls around it as Mou Fubuki reaches forward to flick the ice block with her fingers.

    "SNOW HEART SOLSTICE!"

    At the impact, the mass of ice, snow and cold launches forward, racing directly towards the girl-turned-monster and following up Wedding Bell's attack. Upon impact, the ice shatters, covering the monster in purifying snow. The wind picks up, blasting the monster, as more and more snow piles on top of her.

    If there's anything left of the girl now, Laisa still wants to save her. Either way, she can't help but pity her. "Poor thing."

Molly Skyline has posed:
Molly really needs to give it a moment, before she casts another spell. That wasn't a finisher, it was one of her more mundane spells but she cranked it well past the safety limits. Starcrash is ticking loudly, the way metal does when it's cooling off; surely that isn't ideal. Yes, definitely need to wait for a moment. Take a defensive posture, without casting any defensive spells. Yes.

...Except that the poor girl has emerged from the portal, and something absolutely hideous has happened to her. That's what happens to a 'failed host'?! At first, Molly just suppresses the need to vomit; and then, she resists the urge to charge up a spell and put the poor person out of her misery. Afterall, Molly is not a killer; she's never actually ended a life and doesn't want to start now.

Besides, that girl deserves to be saved; maybe those present who can do purifications cane save her. But... what if they can't?

<< WARNING: PRIMARY TARGET PREPARING DUSKPORT >>

OKay but what should she do about that?

"Wait!!" she shouts, flying closer to the portal entrance without, y'know, actually going in. "Wait. We want to save that girl -- tell us how to get the... proto-daimon or whatever out of her. Give us that information, and... and I'll trade you. Information for information. I'll let you scan me if you like. ...Last time I saw you, you said I was 'interesting'. So help us save her, and you can have your data."

Death Buster Viluy (280) has posed:
Viluy is on her way out, preparing to flee now that her experiment has been wrecked -

But Star Devil calls out to her, even as Red fires, as Tuxedo Kamen boosts, as Wedding Bell and Snow Angel Mou Fubuki work their literal magic.

The daimon-human fusion monsteris buried in snow and bathed in light, and remains hidden under the hardened heaps of purifying ice, and Viluy flicks her arm towards Star Devil, commanding her nanites with a single phrase:

"Mosiac Scan."

Starcrash may feel it, actually, millions of tiny scanning lasers running over his systems and Molly's body, as they examine her barrier jacket, her device, every micrometer of her being that they can reach.

It happens in mere seconds.

Only then does she say -

"You are interesting. And the girl should recover, now. My readings show that the protodaimon is detaching from her. Whatever that energy is... it's restoring her."

She sounds impressed. She sounds interested. That probably doesn't bode well -

And then there's movement, and her duskport snaps into place, and she is gone (but not with her tower), as Amy's attack strikes home.

The tower has been reduced to rubble, but Viluy is gone.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Tuxedo Kamen tentatively throws a rose at the pile of ice and snow.

Molly Skyline has posed:
Molly can't feel the scan, but she can sense Starcrash's apprehension as it happens. And, it only takes seconds, but it feels like... a several very very long seconds. But then it is over; Viluy has left, and Amy has fully destroyed the tower. Molly lets herself float down to the ground, and her wings flicker out as she lands.

"She's gonna be okay?" she asks. "I mean... the witch said she would be, but I'd like to know for certain." She rests Starcrash on her shoulders as she walks forwards, to where she can watch what's going on without really interfering.

Starcrash... Uhm." She sighs, and shakes her head. "Nevermind."

Was giving Viluy that scan worth it? She looks to where the portal was, then back to the yhoung girl who's no longer a failed host, and should be able to go back to her life... hopefully with no memory of this. It'll be like it never happened.

Yeah. Worth it.

Laisa Samuiko has posed:
    Laisa watches as the girl-monster turns back into a normal girl buried under snow. When she considers how to clean up the mess she made, a rose hits the snow and it all vanishes. "Well, that was easy."

Amanda Faust has posed:
    "How did that work?!" Amy stares at the ruins of the tower in surprise. "They've always been so hard to destroy before! More importantly...!"

    She turns towards the dome of ice and snow trapping the poor girl to anxiously see if the purification worked, as the rose starts cutting through magic...

Angela Erickson has posed:
Wedding Bell quickly runs forward to dig the victim out when a rose thwips by her and the snow merely vanishes away. She gently walks over more slower and reaches behind her and produces a plate with a large slice of white cake on it, many layered.

She places the plate next to the girl's head and pats pats her. The cake will smell delicious and it wants you to eat it. It'll make her feel better! At least emotionally.

She stands back up and dusts her hands off.

"The Day is Saved!" she says.

She braces and cringes... when there's no more infernal screeching she relaxes.

"T..Tuxedo Boy...." she says. "Thank you!" she says, eyes wibbling. "Thank you all!" she says, before she spins and---

Amy catch her bouquet it's flying through the air at you!

Death Buster Viluy (280) has posed:
The girl - about their relative age, and making a very OmO face about being buried under snow, is suddenly going O.O as the snow vanishes, leaving her cold, damp, and very confused. Her uniform is torn but not in a Weird way, just ragged tears up her sleeves where her arms became weird noodles and blown seams around the waistline of her skirt from her torso blooming outwards into a weird monster. She's dressed, and still has all of her modesty protected, so she's mostly just out of a school-worthy uniform, when all is said and done!

"Um," she says, and then doesn't say anything else, because really, what does one say? All of that certainly happened, and then she notices a piece of cake, at her feet, on a plate. It's a really nice piece of cake, too.

She tries to move, just a little bit, reaching for the cake and it all catches up to her - the draining, the transformation, the painful purification - and she collapses into a dead faint right there in front of them.

x.x, is what her unconscious little face says now...

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy sighs in relief upon seeing the girl is OK. She sees Wedding Bell... hand out cake? "You can just summon cake? That's cool--" Amy observes, and then suddenly the bouquet is thrown at her, and this time she's already had to process too much to immediately recognize it as anything but 'an ally through you a thing, catch it', so she does...

    And then she realizes what she's caught, just like that time in the Bridal Club room, looking shocked and then starting to blush at the implication that she's next to wed. "I-I-I'm not ready to get married! I-I mean why did you throw me flowers?!" Maybe... maybe she misunderstood something somehow???

Laisa Samuiko has posed:
    Mou Fubuki looks down at the girl as she collapses with a piece of cake next to her. The Snow Angel scratches the back of her pale blue hair for a moment, and she opens her mouth to say something but... the right words aren't coming to mind. Instead, she turns her back on the girl and wraps her arms around her body. "Well that's messed up. I mean, not as much as it would've been without us, but even so."

    Her eyes go to the tower, and then she shrugs at Amy. "Guess they don't make them like they used to?"

    Then she notices that bouquets are getting tossed around. Amy says she's not ready to get married and Mou Fubuki responds with, "Mood."

    Then she starts to hurry her way out of here to find something to wash out her memories with.

Death Buster Viluy (280) has posed:
Later, the girl who was briefly host and monster, devours her cake - she woke up at the hospital, and the staff told her it was perfectly safe to eat, so the paramedics had saved it for her.

It's really, really good. She cries, a little, while she eats it, and her parents hug her tight.


Even later, Viluy examines the results of her scan and laughs.

"This just might be what we've been missing all along," she's smug and preening, looking at Mimete and Tellu. "The data I've obtained from that girl, it's the key. Just you wait."

She may have only had one failure today, but the energy scans of that girl were hardly any different from the others in line. Star Devil, on the other hand...

"She's nothing like those failures."